A vehicle health management model provides the capability to import existing design data, service procedures and maintenance records for use in development of automated monitoring, diagnostic, prognostic and maintenance support systems. Since most of this data is located in multiple manuals, complex engineering drawings, control block diagrams, and the like, it is necessary to have a mechanism to import all of them quickly and accurately into the model. Although it is a relatively simple task to import textual data into a vehicle health management model, it is a challenge to electronically scan all required engineering schematics to quickly and accurately extract component information for the model.
Accordingly, it is desirable to use an algorithm to scan existing engineering schematics and to extract schematic element data from engineering schematics. In addition, it is desirable to automatically link the schematic element data to previously defined schematic elements in the model. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.